Retail Seed Catalogs Are Filled With Number Of New Vegetables

February 11, 1996|by BETH W. ORENSTIEN (A free-lance story for The Morning Call)

No new vegetables were named All-American Selections winners this year. AAS awards are gardening's equivalent of sport's rookie-of-the-year honors.

However, the retail seed catalogs are filled with a number of new vegetables that should prove popular, says Nona Wolfram-Koivula, a spokeswoman for All-America Selections and the National Garden Bureau in Downers Grove, Ill.

Here are some of them:

* Carrot 1 Hybrid "Healthmaster" has about 35 percent more vitamin A than common varieties. Carrot F1 Hybrid "Caroline" offers better tolerance to leaf blight than many other hybrids.

* Lettuce "Little Caesar" yields heads about one-third the size of standard heads, making it perfect for a salad for two. The tender leaves are rich, dark green and loaded with flavor.

* Pea "Super Sugar Snap" is a sweet snap pea that delivers sweet flavor on plumper pods than other snaps. It matures about six days earlier than "Sugar Snap," and has many double pods that improve yield potential.

* Pepper "Ole" is a dark green, jumbo jalapeno pepper that matures about 60 days after transplanting. The thick-fleshed fruits are excellent for slicing and dicing. Pepper F1 Hybrid "Mandarin" is an elongated, glossy orange pepper of the European Lamuyo pepper type. It has a distinctive sweet flavor. * Pepper F1 Hybrid "Summer Sweet" is a bell pepper that matures in about 86 days. Pepper F1 Hybrid "Red Beauty" is the first bell pepper widely enough adapted to be recommended for planting almost anywhere. It quickly produces fruits that turn to a very bright red about two weeks after they appear. Pepper F1 Hybrid "Valencia" has thick-walled, crunchy, sweet fruits. Its vigorous plants offer good leaf coverage and strong branches.

* Squash F1 Hybrid "Autumn Cup" is a buttercup winter squash on a semi-bush instead of a sprawling vine. Squash F1 Hybrid "Heart of Gold" is a winter squash with a sweet, golden orange, finely grained flesh. Its rind is creamy white with dark green, mottled striping and excellent for home gardens. Squash F1 Hybrid "Pay Day" is a golden zucchini that matures in about 50 days after transplanting.

* Tomato F1 Hybrid "Bush Big Boy Hybrid" offers the qualities of "Big Boy" on a compact, bush-type plant. It can be grown in cages or on short stakes and takes up less space than "Big Boy." Tomato F1 Hybrid "Miracle Sweet," is a good tasting normal-sized tomato producing fruits of about 5 to 6 ounces. Plants produce a large number of fruits that ripen uniformly.

* Watermelon F1 Hybrid "Huck Finn" has a very sweet reddish-pink flesh. It produces 20-to 25-pound oblong fruits about 85 days after transplanting. Watermelon "SuperSweet" matures about 88 days after transplanting. Its flesh is bright yellow; the melons average about 12 to 14 pounds.